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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26823025">the other side</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatertwitch/pseuds/tatertwitch'>tatertwitch</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Hawke Escapes the Fade (Dragon Age), Hawke Left in the Fade (Dragon Age), Hawke Literally Crawls Out Of The Fade, Mage Hawke (Dragon Age), Major Character Injury, Vomiting, brief mentions of horrid orlesian interior decorating, hawke and varric: platonic soulmates, mention of hawke/merrill, mentions of overdrinking, mild self hatred</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:28:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>931</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26823025</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatertwitch/pseuds/tatertwitch</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>hawke doesn't know when to give in.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Minor or Background Relationship(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the other side</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="">
  <p>It's been a long time since she considered giving up.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She'd had to delay mourning Bethany for a week as they ran for their lives, dehydrated and starving and terrified. Mother had wanted to pause, to catch her breath, to <em>process</em> - but Hawke pushed her to keep running. Even after Leandra died, she took the next day off to stay in bed with her head on Merrill's chest and sob, but within the week she was on the Wounded Coast wiping out a band of raiders. Her instincts have always told her to fight, to scream, to escape by the skin of her teeth. Every tragedy in Hawke's life since she left Lothering has been overshadowed by the fact that <em>she has shit to do</em>.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She tries to remind herself of that as she crawls through the fetid waters of the Fade, choking at the stench of demon ichor and her own vomit down her chestplate. Every movement sends a new flash of agony down her shattered arm, her twisted leg, her broken ribs. It would be so, so easy to lie down in the grey mud and let it all go - every mistake she'd made, every death she'd caused, every time she tried to drink away her memories and Varric found her face down in a puddle of puke outside the Hanged Man. When her life flashes before her eyes, it's tainted by an undercurrent of constant heartbreak.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She's so fucking tired.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But she has shit to do.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>So she crawls. She's dizzy from blood loss, and her heartbeat pounding in her ears drowns out all thoughts aside from <em>keep fucking moving</em>. She doesn't know where she's going. She doesn't know if there's even a way out. She could be doomed to bleed out on the beaches of the raw Fade, alone and broken. Even if she managed to escape, time could work differently on this side of the Veil. She could tumble through a rift and find all that's left of her home is a graveyard of everyone she's ever loved.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Everyone she's ever failed.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She keeps crawling anyway.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>....</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She can't reach the rift if she's laying on the ground.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><em>Fuck</em>.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Okay," she groans. "Shit. Okay."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She grips the wood of her staff, her knuckles white and her dislocated shoulder screaming in pain. She slowly maneuvers it into an upright position, shoving its blade into the sand to stabilise it. Her hands crawl up the staff as high as she can push them, and she grits her teeth as she pulls herself upwards.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Her vision goes white around the edges, and her body is on fire. Her broken leg shudders and she almost falls back to the ground before she shifts her weight to the other foot. She bites her tongue so hard it bleeds. She feels a tooth crack with how hard she's clenching her jaw. She's going to vomit again. Every nerve is screaming. <em>She</em> is screaming.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She takes one awful, torturous step forward. And then she takes another, and another, and she's falling through the rift.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She lands face down in the dirt with a heavy <em>thud</em>. She watches as a trickle of blood from her gaping mouth forms a tiny river of red upon the ground. Her vision swims. She vaguely registers the pain in her battered body, but it's getting further and further away, like a dream upon waking. She tells herself she needs to get up, but her limbs don't respond.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She lies there, helpless, until everything goes black.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>...</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She's alive.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It's <em>impossible</em>. She knows that. She runs through all the injuries she can remember sustaining in the Fade, and comes to the conclusion that she <em>should</em> be dead, her corpse laying in the mud, open mouthed and twisted.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And yet ... she's not.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She can smell burning wood and the cloying stench of healing poultice. Her throat is dry and scratchy, and her tongue feels three sizes too big for her mouth. Her head pounds and everything aches. It hurts to breathe.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It feels incredible.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Hawke?"</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>With a groan, she forces her leaden eyelids open. She finds herself in a pleasantly dark room, lit only by a single candle on her bedside table and a fire crackling in the hearth. The flames throw shadows off the unfamiliar white tiles and ornate furniture. <em>Orlais</em>, she thinks, judging by the gaudy gold scrollwork she can see around the fireplace.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>A very familiar crossbow lies atop a marble desk littered with papers. Her heart leaps in her chest.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She turns her stiff neck to face the direction the voice came from. Curled up in a high backed chair by her bedside, boots off and a book lying forgotten in his lap, is the happiest looking dwarf Hawke has ever seen.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Hey," she croaks.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Varric launches himself from his chair, book tossed to the ground, and throws his arms around her. Hawke instinctively raises her bandaged hands to grab the back of his coat, burying her face in the crook of his neck. It hurts to move. She doesn't care.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It takes her a second to realise Varric is sobbing into her shoulder.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"I thought I'd lost you," he chokes.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She lays her chin on the top of his head, the way she always does when they hug. It feels <em>right</em>. It feels like home.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"Give me some bloody credit, Varric. It was only a Fear demon. Nothing I couldn't handle."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He snorts. "Cocky bastard."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"You love me."</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"I do," he mutters, sitting up and shaking his head. "Andraste's tits, I wouldn't trade you for the world."</p>
</div>
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